Welcome to Lower Primary

Wow! It’s been a fantastic start to Year 1.  The children have made me extremely proud with their attitude to learning, kindness and positivity. It has also been wonderful to hear about all their summer holiday adventures and get to know each child individually.

Firstly, a huge welcome to both new and returning children and an extra special shout out to our new friends; Ovi, Maria Clara, Enrique, Noam and Julia. It’s great to see how quickly you have all settled in to school- welcome to our class and welcome to ISG!

Our year started with lots of fun games and art activities that were aimed at getting to know one another better. We went on a trip to the park with the whole of primary and played a variety of games, it was great to see the primary classes work together and it was a good experience for Year 1 children to get to know students from the rest of the school.

We have kicked off our Literacy programme and have been busy setting up our reading rotation, phonics lessons and spelling. We are also doing a literacy session each day that is centred around stories; in these sessions we will be extending children’s writing and integrating grammar in a purposeful and meaningful way. In Maths we are following the Abacus programme which started off revising numbers to 20 and pairs to 5 and 6, moving forward we will be concentrating on making 10 and doubling to 5.

Our first IPC project is called ‘Our World’. Our Entry Point was a treasure hunt around school where the children followed clues and had to collect all the letters to spell out the words ‘Our World’. Through this project the children will be exploring where we live – our home, our family, our school. We will also do numerous trips in and around Gent to explore our surroundings and learn more about our environment and the part we play within it.

This year we are lucky enough to have a full-time assistant in class, for those of you who haven’t yet met her Miss Monica has been with us since the start of term, she comes from Hungary and brings dedication and experience to the job. We are delighted to have her with us- welcome Miss Monika.

I am looking forward to a fun year of learning together and watching each child grow, develop and enjoy their time in Year 1!